A brilliant lawyer and man for all seasons

Does a name speak for itself ? In most instances the answer would be a “No”. But in the case of Vernon Malik Akbar Gunasekara, the answer was always “yes” and his name spoke for itself about him in volumes.

Vernon - one of the most amazing men on the planet, a true friend in time of crisis and horrible enemy to anyone who harmed someone he cared about. Vernon was a true gentleman, always putting others before himself. He possessed a heart of gold even if it had been broken in the past.

Malik - King of kings

Akbar - Great

Gunasekara - (Guna + s (h)ekara) - value at its zenith

An Attorney-at-Law, and author, Vernon or “Verna” as we used to call him, was called to rest on April 10, at a very young age of 53.

Born on May 31, 1964 to a Christian father and a Malay mother, he practised all religions without discrimination. During the holy month of Ramadan, he was a true believer and did his fasting to the letter. He was a Christian on the day Christ was born and I myself had seen him observing sil on two occasions.

He had his early education at St. Anthony’s College, Kandy of which the motto was “Lux De Coelo” . He himself was a “light from heaven” to his alma mater.

Soon after A/L’s he joined Sri Lanka Law College, where by popular majority he became the vice-president of the Law Students’ Union. Back then the Law-Medical was a single day event. A cricket match between the law students and medical students, a netball match between the fair sex of the two institutions, followed by a dinnerdance was the order of the day. Then came Verna and company who changed it into a week-long fun and frolic. Thus the LawMedical week was born and Verna was a pioneer who made this happen.

Sir Oliver Gunathilake was the maternal uncle of Verna’s late father; Vernon Gunasekara (Snr.) Senior Vernon was one of the founding members of Lanka Sama Samaja Party and its first secretary. Being an ideologist in Communism and Trotskyism, he assisted the eminent lawyer H.V. Perera in the famous Bracegirdle case. Mark Anthony Lister Bracegirdle, an Australian national came to then Ceylon as a trained tea planter (creeper) in April 1936. Soon he realized the magnitude of the exploitation of Indian labour by British rulers and started addressing the issue at LSSP meetings. The governor at that time Sir Reginald Stubbs issued a deportation order against Bracegirdle, who evaded the order and canvassed the same in the Supreme Court. Vernon Gunasekara (Snr.) filed a writ of habeas corpus after the arrest of Bracegirdle at Vernon (Snr’s) residence at Hulftsdorp. Chief Justice Sir Sydney Abrahams, an Englishman himself together with two other judges ruled that Bracegirdle should not be deported for exercising his right of free speech. Remember that this was an era where fundamental rights were unheard of and the British rulers made mincemeat of anybody who opposed them. Such was the illustrious career of Vernon Gunasekara (Snr.). But our Verna was even better.

Our Verna’s cross-examination skills were beyond imagination in the Abanwala acid throwing case. Even his opponents admired the tolerance and endurance he practised during the trial of the Gampola bomb incidence. A professor’s wife and daughter were killed at Deveni Rajasinghe Mawatha, Kandy. The suspects were arrested years later and Vernon Gunasekara (Jnr.) was their counsel. One accused turned into a crown witness. His legal arguments pertaining to the ‘accomplice’ were par excellence at the High Court. His loss will be greatly felt in the Kings Park murder trial. His absence will be an irreplaceable void among his friends and foes alike in the Kandy Bar.

De Mortuis nil nisi bonum; of the dead nothing but the good is to be said. I tried my best to find something bad about Vernon Malik Akbar Gunasekara. But there was none. A true believer in “Que sera sera” he never hesitated to enjoy worldly pleasures the world could offer. His scholarly knowledge in any subject made him a man who could walk with kings and still dine with commoners.

May he attain the supreme bliss... of whatever he intended!